


Koh Hath No Fury Like a Turtleduck Mildly Annoyed

by FoiblePNoteworthy



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Comedy, Fluff, Gen, Help, Turtleduck(s), Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, aangs a smug vegetarian, blame muffinlance, but hes a literal turtleduck, guys I'm done with this fic, i have not written a single fic where zuko isnt called li, pls don't ask me to write more, sokka fears the fluffy fury, zuko gets turned into a turtleduck au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:26:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21859786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoiblePNoteworthy/pseuds/FoiblePNoteworthy
Summary: The GAang adopt a scowly turtleduck after he attacks Sokka. That's it, that's the story.Blame MuffinLance. I sure do.
Relationships: The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 128
Kudos: 1711
Collections: Quality Fics





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MuffinLance](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuffinLance/gifts), [Carolofthebell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carolofthebell/gifts).



> tfw you take a break from writing and go on muffinlance's tumblr and she gives you something else to write. ffs i had shit to do. why do you do this
> 
> Edit: It has been revealed that this isn't technically her fault (thank you, Carolofthebell, for the prompt). This doesn't stop me from blaming her specifically for my other fics being late
> 
> Edit edit: I dont know how i managed to tag this with major character death but sorry for any confusion about that

It wasn’t that unusual to hear Sokka screaming - he tended to overreact to things (not that he’d ever admit to it). What Katara couldn’t understand was why he was screaming while hunting _turtleducks_.

She exchanged a look with Aang. Did they need to check on him?

Sokka’s screaming only got louder as he came screeching through the trees, tripping over a root to land face-down in their camp.

“Good hunting?” Aang, paragon of virtue and peace, smugged at him from his vegetarian high-ostrich-horse.

Sokka didn’t respond, nor did he make any effort to climb out of the dirt.

Katara rolled her eyes, dragging him into a sitting position. “What happened?” She didn’t bother feigning empathy.

“Uh.” Sokka looked away and raised his voice an octave in a way that told them that whatever was about to come out of his mouth was complete tiger-bull-shit. Experience told them that the truth would show up at the worst possible moment in his story, causing maximum embarrassment.

_(“Your future is full of struggle and anguish, most of it self-inflicted.”)_

The two settled in to watch.

Despite having all the tools he needed - between the water Tribe tradition of oral storytelling, and Sokka being the idea and plan guy - Sokka had never quite figured out how to lie. He lost track of how many moose lions had been chasing him almost immediately, (and got snippy when they pointed it out); and claimed to have run over a mile in the time that he had been screaming, even though they could hear him the whole time - not to mention that the turtleduck pond he was supposed to have been fetching dinner from was barely a hundred yards into the forest.

He was in the middle of explaining exactly how his boomerang had taken out two of the seven (“ _I thought you’d said six, Sokka_ ”) moose lions that had been chasing him (and sharing this territory between them, somehow), even though he’d left his boomerang back at the camp earlier, when a sudden sound had him halting mid-word, his back straight and eyes wide with fear.

There was a quacking coming from the forest.

Aang was on his feet in an instant, always eager to meet new animals when Sokka wasn’t about to kill them.

“Aang, you don’t wanna do that,” Sokka warned, a hand up in a weak attempt to halt him, as the younger boy rushed towards the sound.

Dragging its way through the thick undergrowth of the forest, quacking ferociously, was a fledgling turtleduck.

“Hey there, little guy,” Aang held out his hand to pick it up, but the turtleduck ignored him, nipping his fingers gently when he got too close, eyes only for Sokka as it determinedly forced itself onwards, even though it clearly wasn’t built to move on land. At all. How did it get here?

“Oh, you wanna see Sokka.” Aang picked up the tiny turtleduck under his belly, cupping him carefully in his hands. The turtleduck squinted up at him, one eye marred by some old injury, mistrustful and irritated. “I’ll take you to him, it’s okay,” Aang told him.

He held him out to Sokka who cringed away. The turtleduck quacked again, louder than before in its fluffy fury. “It’s not so much fun hunting when the animal can defend itself, is it?”

“That thing is vicious!” Sokka cried, pointing accusatively at the tiny ball of fluff sitting comfortably in Aang’s cupped hands. “You need to put it down, it’ll bite you. That beak is sharper than it looks.”

(Both of them ignored Katara’s howling laughter in the background.)

“I can’t just put him down, that wouldn’t be fair. He came all this way just to get revenge on you.” He said it as though it deserved to bite him _– again –_ just because it put in the effort (which, admittedly, was a lot; it was some distance for a little thing like that).

Sokka could have almost sworn the prey-turned-predator was nodding at Aang’s words. It wiggled its tiny webbed feet in an attempt to get closer to him, its quacking only getting louder as they kept talking.

“I’m not going to let it bite me.”

“You planned to do more than bite him.”

“He’s made of meat! _It-_ ” and now Aang had him calling it ‘ _him_ ’ like it was a person. “ _It_ should be eaten. That’s how things are.”

“ _You’re_ made of meat,” Aang pointed out. Sokka carefully pushed all the terror at Aang's implications out of his head. He did _not_ appreciate that comparison.

(If this was how being vegetarian affected one’s thought processes, he could only be glad he got a decent amount of meat.

The turtleduck quacked at him again, eyes glinting with promises of pain, as though it could read his mind.)

He was also out of arguments. And desperate to keep that turtleduck away from him. “Katara! Help me out here.”

Katara looked at the two of them, and just barely managed to stop laughing long enough to come up with a mutually agreeable solution. “Aang, take the turtleduck back to his pond-”

“But _Katara_ …”

“ _After_ Sokka apologises to him for trying to eat him.”

Sokka’s face screwed up in indignation. The turtleduck stared at him, expectant.

“I’m not apologising to him!”

“Then he stays here.”

(Aang started to let out a little fist pump, then remembered he was holding a turtleduck. When he bit him.)

“No!” Sokka cried. “For how long?”

“Until you apologise. Aang, would you mind sharing some of your food with our guest?”

Aang grinned, sitting down cross-legged with the turtleduck in his lap, and offered him a handful of seeds.

Katara and Aang carefully avoided mentioning Sokka’s look of anguish. The turtleduck tried to waddle its way back over to Sokka for his revenge, but Aang grabbed him again, putting him back in his lap.

“None of that,” he chided him, waving a finger in his tiny face. “The two of you have to make friends now.”

“Aang, no.”

“I think I’m gonna call you…” Aang paused to think, ignoring Sokka’s increasing panic (“ _Katara, if he names it, he’ll keep it, you can’t let him._ ”), “…Li.”

Li squinted at him for a moment, before accepting more seeds with a little bob of his head, like he was nodding. Aang stroked the soft fuzz on the back of his head, Li moving with him to get optimum pets.

And that was that.


	2. North Pole Bonus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sokka couldn’t quite believe that his mortal enemy was a turtleduck, but he adapted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of y'all might not know the backstory behind the Swan Princess au that I stole this from. It's from carolofthebell, and basically Zuko became a turtleduck after he, like, died during his Agni Kai. He's never been evil or anything, he only just met the GAang in the first part, he's just that untitled goose game and both scared and loving it at the same time.  
> Here's the original post: https://carolofthebell.tumblr.com/post/189688529372/the-swan-princess-au

Li hated the North Pole. They knew this because he told them every day, in his own, special, way.

That is to say, biting.

Sokka, specifically.

It made it especially difficult to get anything done whenever it was his turn to play carry-the-turtleduck-so-he-doesn’t-freeze-to-death. They each had to keep Li warm with their own bodies, keeping him in a pocket or a hood. Li objected to all of this, because _of course he did_ ; his duckly dignity offended by the insulting interior of their pockets (even as he shivered in the open air).

And, just by the way, Sokka was on turtleduck duty _all the time_ , as the others had far more _important_ things to do and they couldn’t possibly risk having Li nearby while they practised with their stupid magic water.

It didn’t help that Li also managed to block Sokka _every time_ he tried to talk to Yue, somehow interrupting him at the absolute worst moments – mostly when he was telling her his funniest one-liners (which _always_ made her laugh), or when he offered her the carving he’d made for her.

Li had somehow managed to ruin everything the first time he met her by biting him and making him fall into the water, also getting him a double lecture from Katara and Aang because _you could have killed Li, he can’t handle the cold like us, what were you thinking?_

(Never mind about me, guys, I’ll just freeze to death over here while you towel dry the water-fowl-reptile- _demon_.)

Li was, of course, a sweetheart to Yue, asking her for little pets and giving these quiet little quacks that were almost chirpy, as she cooed over him and rubbed at his shell. (Li always managed to make eye-contact with him when this happened.)

Sokka couldn’t quite believe that his mortal enemy was a _turtleduck_ , but he adapted.

Or, well, he tried to.

First he tried just leaving Li at home when he wanted to see Yue. He’d be warm enough left next to the fire, right?

…wrong.

The incident that followed gave him horrific flashbacks to the first (and _only,_ as far as the others knew) time he’d tried to eat Li. He wasn’t sure how Li managed to draw blood through his thickest parka with a blunt beak and _how did you even get here, you barely have legs_ , but he learned an important lesson about leaving him unsupervised.

Second, he tried filling his pocket with bits of soft fabric warmed next to the fire, hoping to trick him into falling asleep. It almost worked too, until he forgot he was there and accidentally leaned against a wall and squished him a little.

The fury contained within that tiny body was… about the same as normal, in all honesty. Sokka would have been willing to risk it again – he’d actually managed to _talk_ to her – if Yue hadn’t seemed so disapproving as she, once again, ignored Sokka to fuss over Li.

Sokka’s third and only remaining plan was one he had previously thought unthinkable. He sat down in the hut he shared with his sister and with Aang, and set Li on the chair across from him, on a small stack of cushions so that they could meet each other’s eyes. Li wiggled his legs a little, checking the stability of his perch, but the subtle lift of his chin suggested he was pleased enough with the arrangement.

“Okay, Li,” Sokka said, well past feeling embarrassed to be speaking to a turtleduck like he could understand him. “I apologise for all the times I tried to eat you.” There. He said it.

Li blinked once, then gave him a little nod. They held eye contact for an unnervingly long moment before Li moved his head in a nudging _‘go on’_ sort of gesture.

“No,” Sokka said. “I apologised. I’m done here.”

Li kept staring at him.

“You need to say sorry for biting me.”

Blink.

“Just nod, okay?”

Li stared a moment longer, then slowly, deliberately, shook his head.

Well. That was that, then.

He leapt up in vindication, pointing at Li. “I knew it! I knew you weren’t an ordinary turtleduck!”

He finally had a good reason to get rid of Li. The others would have no choice but to get rid of him, now. He could be a Fire Nation spy.

How did someone without a moving mouth manage to look so smug?

“What?”

Li continued to smug at him. He didn’t say anything, because he was a duck.

“No. I won. I’m telling everyone you’re a fake turtleduck, and they’ll let me get rid of you.”

Li looked away in a comfortably casual fashion - in a _‘Well, if you say so,’_ sort of way.

Sokka narrowed his eyes at him. Li wiggled his webbed feet idly.

“What?”

Li smugged at him again. He slowly opened his mouth, and gave a single quack.

“Whatever your plan is, it won’t work. They’ll believe me. They’ll know that you're not who you claim to be.”

Li settled down to nap, too confident in his position to bother listening to Sokka.

Sokka seethed.

***

Aang and Katara were staring at him like he was crazy. The fact that they’d been having this argument for nearly half an hour probably didn’t help their assessment of him.

Li was napping in Aang’s cupped hands, happy as anything. Katara stood between Sokka and them, arms out protectively.

“I’m telling you; he’s not what you think he is!”

“He’s a turtleduck, Sokka!”

“No, he isn’t!”

“Yes, he is! Look at him. He. Is. A. Duck.”

Sokka wanted to tear his hair out in frustration.

Li cracked one eye open just to bask in Sokka’s anger.

“Sokka,” Katara gently placed a hand over his own, “I get that you and Li don’t get along very well, but Aang and I _need_ you to look after him right now. I’m sorry this has affected your relationship with Yue, but maybe you could try turning Li into an advantage instead of an enemy.”

Sokka was pretty sure she was the crazy one.

“Just think about it, okay?”

Sokka gave a little huff, but didn’t turn her down directly.

Aang carefully placed Li back into Sokka’s hands. ‘Carefully’ in part due to his own fear that Sokka might harm his little buddy, but also because he still seemed to think Li was asleep.

“We’ve got more training to do,” he said instead of _‘please don’t squish my tiny turtleduck with your powerful muscly man hands’._

“Will you two be okay together?” was his way of asking _‘are you going to kill my turtleduck?’_.

Sokka carefully – because he didn’t want to get bitten (but Li’s fuzz was soft enough to risk it) – petted Li’s head. “I think we’ll be okay.” He swallowed his pride and added, “Sorry about this, I’ve just been a little frustrated stuck with just Li for company.”

“That’s fair, we’re sorry we’ve left you alone so often,” Katara rubbed his arm gently.

They gave him one last look, clearly unsure of what to say to his accusation and apparent new calm, and left together.

In his hands, Li looked up at him, smirking with his good eye.

“Okay,” Sokka said, as much to himself as to Li. “Okay. This is. You knew they were going to do that, weren’t you?”

Li nodded, shrugging with a ripple of little webbed feet. Was he trying to be sarcastic? How do you speak turtleduck, anyway?

He fixed Sokka with a firm look, and he was sure he was mocking him somehow. Which he deserved. Probably. He could admit that this hadn’t been his best plan.

He looked at Li, tiny and helpless and very aware of it – especially when around Sokka, since he always jokes about wanting to… eat him.

Li’s teeny tiny flippers were trembling slightly, maybe with cold, but maybe… “You know I’m not really going to eat you, right?” Li squinted at him. “Okay so I was that first time, but after that I was joking… mostly. But I definitely won’t eat you now, you’re almost like a person.”

Li nipped him and wouldn’t let go and yeah he probably deserved that too. “Okay, okay, fine; you’re a person, you’re not just a duck, I promise.”

Li released his thumb, slightly smug.

Sokka dared to stroke the soft fuzz on the back of his head, and Li didn’t bite him. Progress.

Maybe it was worth considering Katara’s suggestion.

“Okay, listen,” Sokka said, placing Li back atop his stack of pillows, sitting across from him again. “I like Yue.”

If Li had eyebrows he would have raised them in a _‘Well, duh’_ fashion. Browless that he was, he just nodded with a little too much swagger.

“Yeah, I know that you know that.” Sokka leaned forwards, placing his hands on his knees. “But my point was that you know that I like her and you’ve been blocking me making my sweet moves on her.”

Li let out a short sharp quack that ~~could have been, _no_ ,~~ was _definitely_ a laugh.

Okay, so they weren’t quite friends, yet, but Sokka could still work with this.

“You know she likes me back!” Li made a ‘so-so’ gesture with one of his flippers, which was somehow worse than biting him. He wasn’t even pretending not to be a duck anymore.

Sokka scrubbed his hands through his hair, messing up his warrior’s wolf-tail. He just had to make this work and then… Yue.

And peace with Li, potentially.

He honestly didn’t know which he wanted more at this point.

“What do you want?” he asked. “In exchange for helping me with her, I mean. Or just not being a _dick_ when I’m trying to talk to her.”

 _‘You don’t have a real mouth – HOW ARE YOU THIS SMUG?’_ Shouted one half of his brain.

 _‘He doesn’t have a real mouth. That’ll make negotiations difficult.’_ Said the more logical half.

“Look, I’ll get you the good seeds and keep you comfy and warm and I’ll give you as many pets as you want.” Li looked amenable, but wasn’t nodding yet. “What else do you even want?”

Li gave another little shrugging ripple of his tiny flippers.

Sokka narrowed his eyes in thought. He didn’t want to give Li too much, especially if he needed another favour from him later. There were plenty of practical uses to a super-secret sentient… swan. _(No, that wouldn’t work, Li wasn’t half that elegant. Even if he was just as violent._

_Best not to say any of that out loud.)_

“How about this,” he offered, “I’ll make sure you’re actually comfy and warm – I’ll make you a scarf or something if you want it-” Li gave him a _Look_ but he continued on regardless, “-and I’ll owe you _one_ unspecified favour.”

There was a long considering pause.

Then Li nodded.

Sokka grinned. “Here’s the plan…”

***

Aang and Katara returned to find Sokka monologuing to Li about his plans for Yue, explaining how the duck could help him.

That was… different. They wouldn’t quite call it an improvement.

They exchanged a look, and left before Sokka could notice them.

His monologue didn’t falter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos comment and subscribe I guess since I'll come back a some point  
> I wasn't planning on ever coming back to this, but here's more I guess.  
> (@everyone waiting on my other stuff I'd apologise but I'm not all that sorry. @everyone who isn't waiting on my other stuff i have a Jet adopts Zuko au and a 'Zuko claiming to be his own twin brother and it works' au and a few smaller works as well)  
> The sad thing about this series is that the first chapter was quite possibly the best writing I'd ever done, and I was terrified at the thought of trying to follow it up. But turtleduck Zuko is, honestly, loads of fun. 
> 
> When I wrote this I was planning on continuing it but now I'm just not interested in following it up. I have a lot of wips on the go that I'm much more interested in. I might add to this at some point, but I'm marking it as completed for now. 
> 
> I have tumblr now! It's mostly muffinlance fanart, if I'm honest. https://foiblepnoteworthy.tumblr.com/

**Author's Note:**

> wtf someone drew fanart https://www.instagram.com/p/B6RQ7XpFUUN/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link


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